If anyone has read any of these I would love to hear how they were! For now I’m adding them to the reading list. I haven’t made much progress on my reading list for a while unfortunately. I’m hoping to get back on track with that soon.

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Like I mentioned, I thought it would be great to learn about all the countries in the world. Given that life is short, and I probably won’t get to go everywhere (and even if I did, I probably still wouldn’t be able to get as much out if it as I would like to) I thought oh hey, why don’t I read a book from/about every country in the world. Apparently one woman has already done this (and wrote a book about it). I tried reading that book, but…it wasn’t what I thought and incredibly dry. I actually don’t know what I was expecting, probably just pissed that someone took my idea, kind of like Mark Zuckerberg inventing Facebook (not that I would have invented Facebook but still- I can’t get over the fact that while he was inventing Facebook, I was updating my Facebook profile. Ugh). ANYWAY. I figured I should start by writing down a list of countries from around the world.

One thing that is actually in contention, is surprisingly, the definition of the word country. It’s actually quite loose, and incredibly undefined. I decided to go with the broadest definition just so I could learn the most about the world. So some of these aren’t exactly countries, but maybe just territories. All together there are 257, which is…quite a bit. Considering I only read 27 books last year, that means…kind of a lot of years. So maybe I’ll start reading 1 book that encompasses a few countries, and there are a few countries I’ve already read about. But we’ll see.

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I have decided that there are two ways you can intimately know a person. Look through all of their bank statements (Which is what I was doing for NextDrop today, oh man, I know every detail about my company now for REAL) and look at what books they read.

I think you can also look at their playlist (AND top 25 most played songs) but mine would not be that revealing because, well, I just listen to Golden Oldies on Pandora now (it’s the BEST). Also, the whole bank statement thing may be a bit creepy (Oh hey, I want to get to know you better, can I look through your bank statements? I know this is a first date, but really though, yes I’m serious).

Aaaaannnnd back to books. Not that anyone wants to get to know me better or anything, but I like writing them down all in one place. An interesting thing my grandpa’s girlfriend said today: back then she kept a journal on Word Perfect, and now Word Perfect DOES NOT EXIST (ok it does technically but it’s so hard to find someone that has it!). She says if you want it to stick around write it down with pen and paper. Which I did this year. In my notebook. And now, on to the interwebs.

Overall: 27 books in 12 months. It’s about 2 books a month. But it’s pretty obvious the times I took vacation (all the books get done during those times!) How funny, right?

Terrible reads: The most successful book series (#14,#15). You know what most successful people do? Nothing spectacular, nothing we can’t find via Richard Branson’s tweets, and really nothing new.

Best Reads: Definitely depends on what you are interested in at the time, but I’d have to say the ones that I loved the most were Bad Feminist, #GirlBoss, How Google Works (yes, I am a nerd), and Spirit Junkie.

New book resolutions: I want to read 1 book from every country in the world. I had the idea and then I found this woman that did it (and then wrote a book about it I think). She took it WAY seriously, and spent a lot of time researching the different countries, and I think she tried to read a book written by someone from that country. I don’t think I’m going to be that picky, and I have a feeling most of mine will be non fiction, but that’s the plan. At some point I need to write out all the countries, and see which countries I’ve already read about. On the to do list.

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It’s been way too long since I’ve had a book lists update. I think that was because I was experimenting with taking a sabbatical from book lists. Well, I think the real reason is that I always told myself that if I just waited another week, I’d finish another book. That may or may not be true. Who knows. But as much as I can remember, the books I’ve read over the past 5 months:

Ugh, sort of pathetic that I could barely do a book a month, but whatever. I’m working on being less judgmental- apparently that applies to myself as well. Stringer was absolutely fantastic, and it half made me want to be a journalist and/or do something adventurous and/or at the very least visit the Congo. I mostly bought Never Have I Ever because she basically wrote the book about what I thought I could write about (so really I bought it because I was jealous that she wrote this book before I did), and I wanted to see what she had to say. It was pretty decent- she put words to some of the things I felt (and thought I was just crazy), and there were some parts that I was skimming over, but overall I liked the message a lot. Which is that female friends are awesome. I concur. Start With Why is a great book for someone starting a business. I’m not sure when in the business you should be before you read it (I think there’s a lot more crucial books to read) but I guess it depends on what you’re struggling with. There’s a TED video that basically sums it up, but the book was useful as well (i.e. the timing was good for me). The Love Queen of Malabar was great- I learned so much about the elite women of Kerala, and about feminist literature in India, generally. Highly recommend it. Vagabonding was pretty decent as well. It was a while ago, so I don’t remember much, but I remember thinking, that was a cool book (clearly there was less actual learning that came out of it). Brick Lane was amazing and brought me to tears (but then again I cry for the Cinderella Story with Hillary Duff so my standards are low). But it’s about a Bangladeshi woman in London and I loved it. The Hard Thing About Hard Things is one book I think every entrepreneur who has raised money (and is in the middle of trying to raise more money/getting to the next milestone) should read. It doesn’t make much sense if you are just starting out, but it was a perfect read for me this month. I couldn’t put it down. A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea was amazing, and was sort of a magic realism-ish look at the life of a girl in post revolution Iran. Loved it, highly recommend it. Again, tears were there (but again, low standards with that).

I have decided that I’m going to be less clinical about this whole book thing, and just read what I find fascinating. I’m swapping out my trashy TV time for books, so I think we’ll see a lot more fiction on this list. I’m going to try and substitute actual travel for books (when I can’t actually leave my location and/or don’t have enough money to do so) so we’ll see how it goes. Therefore no ‘what I’m reading now’ list. Just…what I finish. I think that may give me more freedom (at least in my head) to do what I feel like. Lets see if that changes anything.

Toughness was surprisingly good, and it got me through a lot of tough times last month. Not gonna lie, last month was especially trying, and I found myself finding comfort in this book. I must admit, I particularly find inspiration from basketball and I relate to it, so it may not be for everyone (when they started using football examples, I skimmed, so that’s just a heads up). But it has a lot of life lessons that anyone can apply. Peter Thiel/Blake Masters notes was amazing and blew my mind. I feel like I just had a truck load of knowledge dropped on me and I think anyone running a startup should read this note set as mandatory reading. The Husband’s Secret was surprisingly morbid (unlike the last book I read by the author) so I have decided no more books by this woman. I think she only has 3 anyway so it’s all right. How I Braved Anu Aunty & Co- Founded a Million Dollar Company was actually a book I picked up at a train station a year ago, and at the Ink Conference, I actually met Varun, the author. He was an INK fellow last year and he’s a super cool guy. Then I was like…man I need to find out what happens in the book. It’s a quick read and I actually really enjoyed it. I liked it because I feel like it gives you an accurate glimpse of what life in India is like for the average upper middle class family. It was cool because so much of that I related to, as in, I have been in those conversations with my guy friends/family in India (so it was pretty funny).

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Two months later, and since I took some vacation time, I think I may have actually been able to finish what I wanted to- Yay (to finally not being a slacker) And of course, as usual, half of the books that I finished weren’t even on there to begin with last time, but hey, I got some actual fiction reading in there so I’m pretty happy.

Beautiful Thing was amazing, and I learned so much about Mumbai Dance Bars. The reason I picked it up was because I read in the paper that the 5 year ban on dance bars had been removed, and it talked about the whole industry, which got me super curious. Highly recommend the book. The Well Spoken Woman was actually pretty great- you can skim it because there are certain things that will apply to you and there are certain things that won’t- but I would recommend it as well (for a look through). Immortals of Meluha was all right, I don’t think I’m going to read the rest of the trilogy (unless I get super bored maybe?) Religious fantasy (is that a genre?) isn’t really my thing, turns out. Sacred Hoops was way better than I thought it would be- mostly because I related a lot to Phil Jackson trying to lead the 1989 Bulls team, and how he had to manage a lot of people that were amazing individually but didn’t necessarily gel (well, that’s his job and he had some good insights). The Finishing Touch I could have Googled- shouldn’t have bought it. What Alice Forgot was an awesome chick lit escapist piece and I bought her other novel too. Turns out when the summer Hulu shows are finished and Grey’s Anatomy hasn’t started, chick lit is an awesome substitute. Waiting to Exhale is in that category as well, but I’m not a huge fan. I’m not going to read any of Terry McMillan’s other books. And the Mountains Echoed was amazing, and Khaled Hosseini made me bawl (for the third time). He’s really a favorite- never disappoints. The Alchemist was a quick read, and it was pretty decent, but I liked Paulo Coelho’s other book, 11 Minutes, a lot better.

And yes, I think I’m going to keep the Graveyard tradition going (one day I will try you again, but sadly you just couldn’t retain my attention):

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That’s why I got into reading. From a young age, I thought books were the portal to…everything. They had all the answers, and I thought that if I read them all, I could become the smartest person alive. I don’t know why I wanted to know everything. It’s not like I wanted to show off. I didn’t want to know everything to tell people. I guess I just wanted to know…just to know. Just to know I had all the answers. I guess I figured all the answers were out there, but I just needed to go and collect it all, to harvest it.

I suppose I still think books hold the key to everything. I feel like the human experience, the ages and ages of it, have been captured, documented, lived, and relived, by people much smarter than myself. Maybe I want to learn as much as I can from them, so I can live my life wholly and completely, with as much information as I can to make the best decisions possible.

But I guess at some point, there is a fine line between learning from the written, and learning from experience, and it’s hard to know when one stops and when the other one starts. Or at least how much of one stops being helpful and starts becoming detrimental, not allowing you to move forward, to live and experience. I think sometimes the word for that is fear, but I’m not sure that’s exactly the right word for it. It’s sort of the mix between fear, unpreparedness, and irresponsibility. If there was a word that described these feelings, that’s what I would use here.

I don’t know if there was a point, other than to appreciate how amazing books are, but also, that maybe if I do read every book ever written, I may become the smartest person alive, but I may not be the most knowledgeable.

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So I’ve decided to take some advice that I’ve read and make a graveyard for all the books that I started that I don’t want to finish right now. Maybe ever. I have to come to terms with the fact that I don’t like some of these books (or I already got what I wanted out of them and don’t want to finish them), and maybe one day I will but right now sitting on my reading list, it’s just too overwhelming.

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Again, I pretty much epically failed over these last two months. But I’m hoping that now fundraising is for the most part over, and I’m spending more time dealing with government agencies/meetings (i.e. lots of waiting time) I’ll be able to read more. Also, I am at 59 books, and that number just stresses me out, which means I think I need to put a freeze on books that I buy and finish off a few of these because this list just keeps getting longer, and I believe my limit without going completely nuts is 50. So that means I need to do really get some reading done this month. But I’ve found myself not as interested in reading as well, which means I probably need to find more inspiration and better books to read. Because when I’m interested, I finish them really fast. But if not, it’s quite challenging. I should figure out how to overcome this. On the to do list. Anyway.

“Lean In” was so epic, I wish she wrote three other sequels (and while we’re at it, I would even read a prequel) it was that good. I had held off for a while because I thought it was somewhat overrated and I had heard so much about it already (from various sources) but man. Totally worth reading. All the other books were all right, Brand You was ok but you can live without it. Warren Buffett’s 3 Favorite books was a good cliff notes to investing, but it was pretty basic, and you can probably get away with just reading a few of the chapters. My Inappropriate Life was definitely better than her first book, but I liked Tina Fey and Jenny Lawson (i.e. The Blogess) better for comedy.

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Basically, I have been slacking over the past two months. You’d think that more travel means more reading. But since it was mostly fundraising related, I think it just meant more stress and less reading. Planning on changing that this month since no reading doesn’t help anybody.

Founders at Work was pretty decent, but it wasn’t as revolutionary as other people told me it was. Would I still recommend it? Maybe, mostly because I haven’t read anything like it. It’s sort of cool being able to relate to what they are going through (but mostly like, oh wow I guess I’m a real startup now…) Steal Like an Artist is incredible, you can read it in 1 hour, and it may change your life. I think it changed mine, as evidenced by all the references in my last blog post. It probably won’t change your life, but I think it was exactly what I needed to hear at exactly the right time, so it made it all the more spectacular. You’ll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again was entertaining, but her other book about motherhood, My Inappropriate Life, which I am reading now, is infinitely better so I wouldn’t bother reading the first one. It was actually somewhat painful getting through the first book because for every one funny part there were 28 other parts about how cute/hot the author was, how unattractive other people were, outfit choice, and Greek life at USC. But the last chapter was good. Fifty Fashion Looks That Changed the 1950’s was awesome, mostly because I have a weird interest in the 1950’s. It was a quick read and I have a whole new list of questions I want answers to, so that’s always great. And of course, Brave New World is a Sci-Fi classic, I’m just behind the times. I enjoyed it immensely, and am really glad I waited until now to read it as I could relate to a lot of themes that were discussed.